At the Underdark Gazette, I posted a series on running famous fantasy worlds, using only resources freely and legally available on the net. The first one was Conan and the Cheap DM, for which I later posted a 2nd part, after finding additional useful info.
I've consolidated those posts, updated the links and added a thing or two.
Conan and the Cheap DM: A Guide to Free Resources, for Running the Hyborian Age
A few years ago, the thought occurred to me that there were so many free resources available on the web, that enough material could be garnered to run several of the most famous fantasy worlds as RPG settings. So, with nothing better to do, I set about to see what all I could find. I started with R. E. Howard’s Hyborian Age and quickly found more than enough!
So, here’s a list of resources, for DM’s who might be interested in dropping a group of players into Conan’s world!
Next we come to The Hyborian Age page, by Thulsa. This site has everything you need! Gods, Demons, a Gazetteer and Maps! Plenty of Maps! Not to mention magic items, famous sorcerers and other personages. The crunch is d20, but if you’re playing an Old School game, it’s easy enough to make your own and truth to tell, you would probably prefer to anyway! The site also reproduces Howard’sThe Hyborian Age essay and a ton of other stuff I haven’t mentioned. Including rules for using Black Lotus!
Vincent Darlage’s Conan d20 site is another fantastic resource! Lots of info on important NPC’s and a ton of really, really cool Weird Tales artwork and covers!
I’m not sure how complete it is, but the Conan Wiki has a Gazetteer and more.Thulsa’s Gazetteer, above, looks to be far superior, but you still might find the Wiki useful.
Speaking of Wiki’s, you might find the Age of Conan Wiki, to be worth your time.
Amra the Lion has several goodies, including a Gazetteer, Maps, Audio of R. E. Howard Conan stories and more!
Mongoose Publishing has a free Map of the Hyborian Age available for download, here. Another version from Mongoose, can be found here.
For some scholarly information, you may find Mysteries of the Hyborian Age by Dale Rippke, to be inspiring.
This one looks fun! Someone put up the Hyborian Age Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe. It’s rather large and contains a ton of Marvel Pictures! For those who aren’t sticklers for purity, an excellent resource!
Hyborian War is an archive of an old Play-by-Mail game, which contains Kingdom Reports and what-not, which you may find useful. No idea if this is still going on or not. The various kingdom reports have some detailed maps of the regions and are in pdf format.
Dragonsfoot # 13 has an AD&D Conversion of Thulsa’s Tower of the Elephant adventure.
Conan: Savage Hyboria is a Savage Worlds Conan conversion, which might provide some useful tidbits.
Here's a Castles & Crusades fan made Conan Supplement by David Bell. I couldn’t find the hosting page, so it's a Direct Link. And here's a thread at the Troll Lord Games forums, with some more conversion work.
And check out Andrew Picciau’s page for his Hyborian Adventures True d20 supplement. A 34 page PDF. Also, there's a 16 page Bestiary, here. Not sure if it's by the same author, or not.
the venomous pao hosts a couple of BoL Hyborian Age adventures, written by G-Man.
Of course, Howard’s stories are the richest source of Hyborian knowledge. Scroll down this Project Guttenberg index, to find a ton of Kick-Ass R. E. Howard Adventures!
Another copy of R. E. Howard’s The Hyborian Age, at Manybooks. Read online, or download as a PDF. The Author’s Page for Mr. Howard, has more R.E.H. Goodness!
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And if You Haven't Chosen a System, Yet...
There's always ZeFRS – The Retro-Clone of the rules from TSR’s old Conan RPG by David Cook. You can download it here.Or, the free version of Barbarians of Lemuria, might just hit that sweet spot, system-wise!
Well, that was Easy!
Got any Hyborian Resources, I've missed? Leave a link in the comments!
